gavel

Meanings

1. Rent.
2. Usury; interest on money.
3. An old Saxon and Welsh form of tenure by which an estate passed, on the holder's death, to all the sons equally; also called gavelkind.

1. To divide or distribute according to the gavel system.

1. A wooden mallet, used by a courtroom judge, or by a committee chairman, struck against a sounding block to quieten those present, or by an auctioneer to accept the highest bid at auction.
2. The beginning or end of legal proceedings.
3. The legal system as a whole.
4. A mason's setting maul.

1. To use a gavel.
2. To begin or end legal proceedings

1. A small heap of grain, not tied up into a bundle.

1. A gable.

Etymology

From Middle English gavel, from Old English gafol, from Proto-West Germanic *gabul, from Proto-Germanic *gebaną (“to give”), equivalent to give + -el.